Grass-Roots G.O.P. Group With Big-Company Backing

By RICHARD L. BERKE,

Published: April 1, 1994

WASHINGTON, March 31—
A nonprofit offshoot of the Republican Party that was formed last year to seek the ideas of ordinary Americans is being financed by big corporations and millionaires whose donations are not subject to Federal restrictions that apply to most political groups.

Since its creation last June, the organization, the National Policy Forum, has been criticized by groups that monitor campaign finances because it has refused to disclose the identities of its donors.

But the forum's own documents, and those of the Republican National Committee, show that in hunting for money they decided against mass mailings and instead sought and received "hard commitments" from giant corporations like the Philip Morris Companies Inc., the Coca-Cola Company, United Parcel Service, Edison Electric, the Prudential Insurance Company of America, A.T.& T. and American Standard.

Several associations also were listed in the documents as having made such commitments, including the National Rifle Association, National Association of Homebuilders, National American Wholesale Grocers' Association and National Cattlemen's Association.

While forum officials refused to discuss these donors, officials at some of the companies that had been solicited confirmed that they had contributed. Similar Democratic Group

The Democratic Party announced the creation of a similar policy group, to deal with health care, to be financed with undisclosed donors last year but then shelved the idea after questions were raised about its propriety.

Though Haley Barbour, the party chairman, billed the forum as "a very participatory program" when he announced its formation, the documents, supplied by a former party employee, show that small donations were not solicited by mail so the forum could concentrate instead on seeking the largest contributions from a limited number of donors.

Forum officials have said the budget for their first year was roughly $4 million. A budget document shows the fund-raising plan as follows: $100,000 apiece from 15 individual or corporate "founders;" $10,000 apiece from 100 major donors; $50,000 apiece from 20 corporate sponsors, and $15,000 apiece from 20 association sponsors.

Republican Party officials say the money collected by the organization is being used only to pursue its goals: to attract new people, like Ross Perot's supporters in the 1992 election, into the party by holding meetings around the nation and publishing a journal called "Commonsense."

Mary Crawford, the forum's communications director, declined to discuss the donors or why their identities had been kept secret.

But William E. Brock, a former party chairman who heads the policy forum's coordinating committee, said officials feared that naming the donors would arouse undue suspicion. "As much as I have believed in disclosure as being the answer for a lot of political problems," he said, "I thought it was not in this case because the stories that would have been written would have had to do with who was financing it and whether or not that was coloring the decisions." No Reporting Requirement

Many people who were solicited for the policy forum had already given the large sums of general money for the Republican Party, donations that are not subject to Federal limits. But because such political "soft money" must be publicly reported, some critics of the forum have contended that it was set up as a nonprofit group so it could collect donations that would not have to be made public.

Mr. Barbour and Michael E. Baroody, the forum's president, played an important role in soliciting the wealthiest donors, according to the documents. In one memo about the fund raising plan that was written last year by Kelly Guesnier, a forum official, she said the goals included, "Set up meetings for Haley for big bucks" and "get the check."

Ms. Guesnier also wrote that she planned to solicit Rabbi Milton Balkany, a major conservative fund raiser from Brooklyn. "I am going to ask him for all of the 250K ASAP," she said. "If he can't do it all now, I'll ask for half in August, the other in Sept."

It is not known whether Rabbi Balkany contributed. There was no answer on his office telephone today and his home number is unlisted.

Oren L. Benton, an industrialist from Denver, said he agreed to give the forum $50,000 last year and $100,000 this year after Mr. Barbour appealed to him.

"So many of these programs tend to become grandiose, self-serving platitudes that aren't for the average citizen," Mr. Benton said in a telephone interview. "But that's the area I'm most interested in. If this isn't policy setting, then I'm out of there." Like other donors, Mr. Benton was named to head one of the forum's policy councils. His deals with "competing in the global marketplace."

Darienne Dennis, a spokeswoman for Philip Morris, said the company gave to the forum to encourage a discussion of the issues. "We don't support them in order to control the forum in any way," she said, "though I'd have to say we are pleased that the Republican Party has a greater aversion to tax increases to fund health care than the Democratic Party." 'It All Evens Out'

The documents listed Philip Morris as committing $50,000 to the forum in 1993 and $150,000 this year. Ms. Dennis said those figures were not accurate but refused to say how much the company gave.

Another donor, American Telephone and Telegraph, said it gave $40,000 to the forum last year. Herb Linnen, a spokesman for the company, emphasized that A.T.& T. was also donating to the Democratic Party. "We're bipartisan," he said. "It all evens out."

Fred Wertheimer, the president of Common Cause, said such mingling of policy and politics is improper. "The danger here is that it creates a new way to evade the Federal campaign finance laws and allow national parties to raise unlimited amounts of undisclosed contributions from special interest who have a stake in government decisions," he said. "The notion that a political party engaged in partisan politics can have an arm that is not engaged in politics is simply not credible."

In her memo, Ms. Guesnier listed eight prospects who "all could easily give a million." They included Ted Arison, the founder of Carnival Cruise Lines; H. Wayne Huizenga, the chairman of Blockbuster Entertainment, and Norman Braman, who owns the Philadelphia Eagles.

Another memo listed other prospects for specific amounts, like $100,000 apiece from Theodore J. Forstmann, who owns a financial company in New York, and Wick Simmons, chief executive of Prudential Securities.

Photo: The National Policy Forum, an offshoot of the Republican Party, is financed with money from big corporations and millionaires whose donations are not subject to Federal restrictions that apply to most political groups. Michael E. Baroody, shown in his Washington office, is the forum's president. (Michael Geissinger for The New York Times)